The other side of the story.

"You're so skinny, it's disgusting!", "Do you ever eat?!", "OMG, you're so tiny, I hate you!", "You must be like anorexic." I hear all this stuff all the time. Does it bother me? Absolutely. Just as much as it must bother someone who's bigger to hear about how "fat" they are, how they should work out, or why do they eat so much. What's the difference? There isn't one. In both situations it's one person tearing another person down because of their body type and criticizing them saying they must be unhealthy.

I'm about 5'9, about 120 pounds, long blonde hair, blue eyes; I get told all the time that I "look like a model." Funny enough, I'm not sure if that's a compliment. For years now there has been a lot of talk about "positive body image" and how women need to be comfortable with their bodies no matter what size or shape they are. All of this comes from the intense pressure of the media to fit into their "perfect image." What defines perfect? There is no real definition; it's an image that has evolved many times over the years.

In recent years this image has generally been tall, skinny, big eyes and full lips.Women's attempts to fit this image has resulted in diet crazes, an eating disorder epidemic among young women, and a spike in plastic surgery, just to name a few. Women are now fighting for images of healthy women in the media.

I agree one hundred percent that women of all sizes are gorgeous, that all women should feel good about themselves and their image, and that images should be of healthy women, but in our fight to get this equality we've forgotten something. By saying that these models that are a size 0 or a size 2 are automatically unhealthy we're going completely against what we're fighting for. I agree that there are many models that are unhealthy, but not ALL women who are smaller than a size 4 are unhealthy.

I'm a size 2, I eat three meals a day, I eat whatever I want, I don't go to the gym, I'm no different than any other 17 year old, but yet, I get told all the time how I must be unhealthy, that I should eat more, that I must be anorexic. My body is my body, it's how I am and like everyone else I shouldn't feel bad about it or be criticized. If we're fighting for women of all body types, all shapes, all sizes to feel good about themselves we need to treat women who are naturally a size 12 and naturally a size 2 the same way.

For years women who are bigger have been told how "disgusting" they are and it only gave us a society with hundreds of thousands of women with low self-esteem and poor body image. For this next generation we are trying to give ALL women a positive body image, regardless of their size. We need to remember that criticizing people's body types is never right. So next time you to to tell somebody they "must be anorexic" or that they should "really hit the gym" remember that all people can't help how they were created. It's not about being skinny, it's not about being big, it's about being healthy.